Is the Media Covering Up the Beginnings of a Race War?

Despite engaging in a seemingly endless and racially-charged national debate about the Trayvon Martin case, the US corporate media has shown no interest in reviving this obsession despite a spate of black on white murders, at least two of which indicate a racially-charged hate crime motivation behind the killings.

George Zimmerman’s acquittal last month drew a line under nearly 18 months of hand-wringing over the threat posed to black people by racially-charged hate crimes. Black ideologues like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and others were constantly in the headlines holding up the Trayvon case as a dire warning that African-Americans could now be targeted for murder merely as a result of the color of their skin.

In light of several high profile black on white murders in recent days, the invective has been noticeably less verbose. The most anger Jesse Jackson could muster over the gang-initiation hate crime slaying of Australian student Chris Lane was a tepid tweet stating that the incident should be “frowned upon.”

Lane was slaughtered by a gunshot to the back as part of a gang initiation by three juveniles, an incident which the media initially tried to downplay as “bored teens.” Two of the suspects are black. It subsequently emerged that one of the suspects had posted racist tweets on his account before the murder, stating “90% of white ppl are nasty. #HATE THEM.” Another reads, “Ayeee I knocced out 5 woods since Zimmerman court!.” “Woods” is a racist term for white people.

Barack Obama, who personally inserted himself into the Trayvon Martin case on two separate occasions, was “not familiar” with Lane’s murder, according to the White House.